I've got 3 dives left while in Aquarius- tonight, and two tomorrow. We have plenty of work to get done in the water, but I also hope we get the chance to enjoy the wonders of the reef like I did last night!

Last night was my FAVORITE dive thus far. There was something in the water, a feeling of activity and excitement. We saw a hawksbill turtle feeding, a stingray feeding, and eagle rays, I found the mantis shrimp again and saw him catch another goby, I hung out with Sylvia for about 20 minutes!!!! (Sylvia is Aquarius's resident goliath grouper, FYI!)

I had such an amazing time during my dive last night, and I also had the chance to reflect on the awesome-ness while on the dive. What an amazing two weeks this has been. The diving down here has been an incredible, once in a lifetime experience. I'm going to treasure moments like last night forever.

We've been busy inside the habitat when not in the water. Today Fabien's sister Celine came to visit. She Skyped with her little son, and it was a fun visit. Celine brought Fabien some French cheese..... and it was SO SMELLY! Everything down here has very potent smells, so the cheese is triple wrapped to keep the smell from filtering throughout the whole habitat!

Face timing with friends in California!

I've also had the chance to Facetime with many friends and family over the last few days. It is so much fun to share my Aquarius experience with everybody. The novelty of this unique experience certainly has not rubbed off yet :)

We can't all go out diving at once. We only have 3 helmets, so this morning is my turn to stay in. I'm taking the dry time to enjoy some hot cocoa, Skype with some friends from Croatia, get some work done, and chat with family!I am very ready for my afternoon excursion, but in the mean time I'll get my work done :)We only have THREE DAYS left in the habitat, so I'm trying to make the most of my last few days here by getting in the water as much as possible.Plus, this morning the divers spotted a VERY rare Manta Ray out in the water! Maybe it will still be hanging out when I get out there in a few hours?

I cannot believe that we have already been in Aquarius for a week now! Time flies down here. The combination of so much time in the water, plus the excitement of Mission 31 makes time slip by.

We've been busy in the water with three excursions a day. In the morning we set up the plankton traps (seen above) to collect plankton from three different substrates. We then usually spend the rest of the morning collecting sponge species for the Ocean Genome Legacy Center at Northeastern University.

Oh Barracuda!!

After our morning excursion we spend an hour or so drying off, prepping for the next dive, and connecting with the surface via email. The viewport next to our table is the ULTIMATE distraction! It is impossible to complete an email without some incredible wildlife swimming into view. In fact, as I was typing this post up, I got a visit from a huge barracuda hunting around the habitat.

Northeastern divers start showing up at mid-morning, so sometimes we see them hard at work on the reef while we are inside getting ready for our next dive:

The mid-day dive is on SCUBA and we spend that dive doing plankton tows and finishing up anything we didn't accomplish in the morning. During our mid-day dive we often get the chance to say hello to the surface team. This has turned into one of my favorite parts of the day. The novelty of communicating with the Northeastern divers during an excursion has definitely not worn off. Its really exciting to wave hello to them, and check in on the science they've got going on.

We come back in for lunch and a warm up around 2:00pm. This gives us a few hours to "bank" more time in the water. We are able to go back out in the evening for up to three hours if we have a dry period of four hours. I really like to be able to stay out for three hours in the evening, it lets us accomplish so much while we are out.

During the night dive we've been setting up the plankton traps to collect the plankton that swims up into the water column over night. We have also spent hours with the Edgertronic. Last night Ryan and I got some incredible shots with the Edgertronic. We finally have the camera dialed in, so that we we can spend more time shooting and less time setting up each shot.

After our evening dive we can shower and dry off for the night, eat dinner, and make the plan for the day. This is also a chance for us to relax. Last night Matt gave us a gift from his wife Carrie. I am so excited about this National Geographic magazine, it has page after page detailing the Con Shelf II project that inspired Mission 31. What a keepsake!

Matt and his wife Carrie gave us all the original National Geographic magazine featuring Con Shelf II!

Our coolest footage yet was caught on camera tonight- a mantis shrimps stricking at a goby. This shot took an hour to set up and get framed and another to shoot. I was hard work, with many hands to help and it was AWESOME!!

Me and the Edgertronic as Grace tells me what the camera is looking at from a computer inside the habitat. In this shoot we were capturing a Sergeant Major guarding it's nest!

Living underwater is so different from normal life. We got lots of questions about it. If you have more questions, send them my way and I'll answer them!!

Here are a few questions we got the other day:

1) Will the Aquarius affect the water environment around it (physically and biologically)?

The Aquarius Habitat has been down here for long enough to become part of the reef. It is a living, breathing reef that is home to millions of animals. The surface of the habitat has grown over with so many types of animals: corals, sponges, tunicates, and more. It is very neat to know that this "artificial" space is actually helping the surrounding reef thrive.

We do our very best to ensure that we are disturbing the waters around the habitat as little as possible. Any experimental set up we are finished with is brought back into the habitat and potted back to the surface. I would say that Aquarius does not have any significantly negative impact on the reef, and that in fact its presence has allow Conch Reef to remain as thriving as it is.

2) Has the coral reef been critically damaged in recent 1-2 years?

The reefs in this area are facing the same serious decline as the rest of the world's reefs. We need to take action now to ensure our coral reefs do not disappear entirely. There haven't been any critical events that have individually harmed Conch Reef (where Aquarius is) in the last 1-2 years.

3) While living underwater, you can see only blue seawater, without other colors. Will this irritate the aquanauts (since they are experiencing prolonged exposure to only the blue spectrum)?

I haven't had any issues with the blue spectrum. It is always surprising to see photographs with color correction, and realize the lack of reds that we are seeing. Our eyes have adjusted to our current color spectrum and are doing just fine!

Every night before we go to bed, Mission 31 Aquanauts video chat with our surface team to make sure we all know the plan for science the next day. Last night, I told Mark Patterson that I would have extra time after my morning science and he asked me to go on a little mission! A few days ago Stephen Price dropped his perscription reading glasses into the water from the boat. They floated down somewhere on the reef. It was a long shot, but Mark thught that maybe I could hunt around for the glasses during my free moment.After Grace and I got our plankton traps collected, I had a few minutes to search where Mark told me their boat had been parked when Stephen's glasses were lost.Well after some hunting I FOUND THE GLASSES! It was a great discovery. Mission accomplished. Plus I had fun using the glasses to photo bomb the reef!

Today is a "down day" in Aquarius.... that means there are no visitors, no top-side boats bringing pots of gear down to us, but it is not a down day for us down here! We are busy out in the water trying new things out and perfecting our research.

This morning we played around with The Edgertronic high speed camera, trying to capture high definition, high speed images while in the water. It is really tricky to do because the screen for the camera is inside the habitat. So Fabian has to tell us where to move the camera to get the perfect image. Even though it is tricky, we were able to capture some incredible footage of Christmas Tree Worms pulling into their shells.

We spent a couple of hours this morning getting familiarized with the sponge species that live around the reef. We will be collecting sample from 14 different sponge species out on the reef. It is vitally important that we are 100% sure about the species we are collecting. We will be taking samples about the size of a pea and bringing them back to Boston with us to hand over to the Ocean Genome Legacy at Northeastern University. They are then going to process the samples and add the DNA to their catalog.

As you can see there were some sponges that we were unsure about... we made sure to take pictures of these individuals so we could go back and look at them later. Out of the 14 species, we got about 8 positively ID-ed and photographed. I call that a success!

Today was another full day of diving, skyping, and living UNDERWATER! I am really excited that the science is coming together, it has been great to interact with Northeastern's top side crew while on our dives. They are GREAT divers.

While I was inside the habitat on s Skype call with Northeastern University's Angela Herring, I was able to show her our NU divers through the porthole.... as I was talking about them! It felt like some sort of sorty within a story... our own Aquarius Skype Increption!Speaking of Increption- did anyone hear about Leonardo DiCaprio's donation to the sea yesterday? So great!!

I got a Tweet from the president of Northeastern!!:

We had a VIP Diver today who has extensive experience in Aquarius: Astronaut Clay Anderson. He was very nice, and also a great dive. We met him out in tthe water before he came into the habitat to talk with Fabian about Aquarius and living underwater vs living under space. He gave Fabian a patch that had lived in space for over 150 days!!

Other day highlights:-They potted down more hot cocoa today!! So great to warm up with!- I became a "real Aquanaut" and visited the Gazebo today...-I got to Skype with an awesome class from Saskatuwan, CanadaWe interviewed with National Geographic Magazine!I spent over 6 hours in the water!!-The giant grouper cam back to check is out in the habitat!-We did our first night dive!! The Aquarius Habitat really does look like a YELLOW SUBMARINE at night with all of the bright yellow cup corals that come out at night to feed- so cool!!!!

I spent over SEVEN HOURS in the water today! I ran around in the diving helmet getting experiments up and running, trouble shooting with the Northeastern team. I shook hands with Adrian Grenier from Entourage! I jumped off the Habitat and worked on perfecting my moon walking!

It was an incredible experience and I cannot wait to do it again tomorrow! But if I don't go to bed right now, I'm going to pass out on my keyboard!

Author

My name is Liz Bentley Magee. I am Northeastern University's Diving Officer and the Three Seas Program Coordinator. I'm going to be blogging about my experience as a Mission 31 Aquanaut at Aquarius Reef Base habitat!